Cleaning Up after Bin Laden

Cleaning Up after Bin Laden

Article excerpt

An eight-point program to accomplish our original goal after 9/
11.

Osama Bin Laden's death a year ago Wednesday, at the hands of a
Navy SEAL team, revealed that America has been fighting two wars in
Afghanistan. One is against Al Qaeda, and is clearly in America's
national interest; the other war, to fix Afghanistan, is much more
questionable. We must take lessons from the way we fight terrorism
in Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere: Focus more on finishing the fight
against Al Qaeda, and less on bringing good government to a failing
state.

After 9/11, American special operations and intelligence
personnel killed and captured Al Qaeda leaders, eliminated its bases
of operation, restricted its financing and disrupted its ability to
launch international attacks. Relentless pressure has kept Al
Qaeda's ability to conduct attacks low.

But in Afghanistan, it's hard to see whether U.S. efforts are
succeeding, and what we should do next. On 9/11 we were not attacked
by a country. Yet because many Qaeda fighters were based and
sheltered in Afghanistan in 2001, some Americans argued that to make
victory permanent we had to not just oust the Taliban government,
but also build a democracy, a modern economy and an effective
national security apparatus for Afghanistan. It was like arguing
that to put out a forest fire, we had to pave the forest.

Today, despite years of investment, the Taliban, criminal
families and warlords still resist control from Kabul. President
Hamid Karzai has been, at best, an unpredictable ally. Transparency
International ranks Afghanistan as more corrupt than any country
except Somalia and North Korea. Government security forces still
cannot coordinate intelligence and operations across the country
without our support.

Since Bin Laden's death, many Americans have decided that our job
in Afghanistan is done. They see a victory in the counterterrorism
campaign, and are tired of the corruption, confusion and dysfunction
of the nation-building campaign. But it would be a mistake to
abandon the country entirely, and fortunately, leaving altogether is
not the only alternative. America has learned to fight Al Qaeda in
other failed and failing states -- Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan --
without completely rebuilding them. It's time to bring those lessons
learned back to where we started.

The weakness of the Karzai government need not pose any more of a
threat to America than the ungovernability of large areas of Yemen
and Somalia does. These areas must be watched closely by
intelligence resources and cooperative tribal leaders, and any new
threat must be cut down quickly. But that essential mission can be
carried out by intelligence and Special Operations personnel who can
smother remnants of Al Qaeda without having to rebuild every country
where it sets up shop. …